4(54- On the Nomenclature of the Physical Sciences. 



opening of the eighth chapter of his ( Astronomy.' But I am 

 not questioning the reality of force ; I merely object to its giving 

 a name to a single subdivision of the science concerned with it. 

 As the number of the convertible forms of force increases, dyna- 

 mics will tend to swallow up apsychology and will extend far into 

 empsychology. But by that time the nomenclature will be 

 ready for reform again. At present, what I should call dynamics 

 scarcely embraces chemistry, because it is not yet determined, I 

 believe, what in the latter science is the analogue of the other 

 forms of force. 



It must be admitted that the adoption of such a term as 

 empsychology would somewhat disturb the modern use of one of 

 the most famous words in the philosophical vocabulary : I mean 



the word psyche. But in Greek, 1 believe, of all ages, Pagan, 



Jewish, and Christian, psyche comprehends animal life, and in 

 Aristotle it comprehends vegetable life. And though (again I 

 suppose under the influence of Plato) psychology is especially 

 contrasted with physics, this is because we are more Platonic 

 than Plato. All or every life may be, as he says, immortal, un- 

 born, and indestructible ; but in the classical passage where he 

 says it is all this, he applies the word phy'sis to it, and the church 

 accepted the application to more mysterious essences still. What- 

 ever else the object of psychology may be, it is certainly some- 

 thing that grows, and its method, so far as it has one, is the 

 method of the physical sciences. The science of language is 

 part of psychology, and Mr. Max Miiller claims a position for 

 it among the physical sciences. If this is conceded, the theory 

 of chances should take its place as the mathematical department 

 of psychology, and as another of the physical sciences. It would 

 be mathematical physics, but of course not dynamics. Psycho- 

 logy would sound awkward, as I have admitted, by the side of 

 empsychology, or as a subdivision of it ; I should prefer to speak 

 of mental science, and contrast it with material science : but I 

 think the awkwardness would not be intolerable; it would be 

 nothing to the present anomalies. 



This extension of the term physics would be the rectification 

 of another frontier, that of metaphysics. Metaphysics will always 

 be contrasted with physics, without reference to the history of 

 the former word, or to the exact sense of the Greek preposition. 

 Accordingly it is now often confounded with psychology. But 

 as soon as psychology or mental science is understood to be a 

 part of physical science, metaphysics may be kept without diffi- 

 culty to its proper sense, the science of existence as such. 

 Whether there is such a science or not, is a distinct question : 

 those who think there is, whether right or wrong, will want the 

 word; and so will those who wish to contradict them. 



